Some background on me

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Profound Changes Current mood:  accomplished Category: Life This is the time for changes, is it not? A little background on me. I have always been a truth seeker and I have always sought ways to make me a better person for me and for others. I grew up in an abusive environment, mostly emotional and verbal. I've heard, "you'll never amount to anything" and "you can't do anything right". I allowed myself to believe those things because the person telling me was an authority figure. I do not condemn how I was brought up because it made me angry enough to want to rise above it. Hence my desire to be a better person and that meant healing my emotional wounds. It has been a long journey with some pitfalls here and there. I always got back on my feet to try again to succeed. I also do not condemn the pitfalls because without them, I would not have learned some valuable lessons. I realize that everything that I would term a negative experience in my life only made me stronger; emotionally, mentally and spiritually. My path has been one of much discernment of many choices. I have quite often made "mistakes" with regard to choices I needed to make because I didn't take the time to listen to my quieter, inner voice or to pay attention to the feelings I had. Our bodies never lie to us. Our bodies always know the truth in any situation. In a previous blog, now in the archive, I mention learning how to listen to your body. It has been called "focusing". You can train yourself to listen to your body using benchmarks that you can remember where you did listen to your body(gut feelings) and possibly prevented a negative experience from happening. At least the "mistakes" I made allowed me to see what I did NOT want! lol  I think I would have to say that when I went into the military after high school was when I started on the path I'm on now. Progress for me was slow and didn't accelerate until I came to Colorado, where I was born. I want to think that it was coming back to my roots that accelerated my progress. Boulder is really the only place I've lived where I feel I belong. I think it's because Boulder is a gathering place for original ideas that are harmonious in nature(B-O-U). With a heart interest in life, love, learning and laws(L). People do things with practicality and effort, carefully and thoroughly(D-E-R). It also helps that we live on the 40th parallel(Baseline Rd). I wonder if you knew that?  Every one's path is different and what works for one will work for some but not all. For most of my life, I have had an addiction to sugar. From what I know about sugar, after reading "The Sugar Blues". We eat too much. It makes out bodies acidic; when we are supposed to be alkaline, and then our immune systems cannot recognize foreign invaders because they have mutated in order to live in the acid environment. Even though I have been mostly healthy, I wanted to kick the addiction.  Since I have been in Colorado, I have had an addiction to marijuana. Even though it is a natural plant and we have receptors in our brains specifically for marijuana, it is too easily abused mainly because our government would rather not take the time to teach us how to use it properly(not that they really know)so they just take it away from us and make it illegal which creates more problems. I had wanted to quit for a long time but my excuse was that I used it for stress and it was too easily accessible. I have had other tools to use for stress but it was easier to smoke a little pot-it worked faster. I also could see how it took away my motivation to do what I needed to do for myself and was a controlling factor in my behavior.  I made a decision(in love of myself) to stop once and for all. I have made that decision many times. I realized that I need some help in finally kicking the habit. With divine timing, because I REALLY wanted to quit, I found an add on the bulletin board of my favorite health food store for a hypnotherapist. There was one number left on a tear-off so I took it. She was also offering her services for free until she practiced enough hours. It was meant to be. We get along great and she has helped me overcome both addictions! I know that because I was serious about quitting both addictions, that I had asked for assistance in finding someone to help me and that I also needed services to be affordable that I found Raven. Three weeks ago yesterday, I came down with something that triggered a HUGE detox in my body. I couldn't even think about food, much less look at it or I felt sick. I also didn't want to smoke anything because of the way I felt. I couldn't eat anything except drink some tea and water for the first week. The second week, my lungs started cleaning house and I coughed up the nastiest stuff I have ever seen come out of my lungs. I did my best to spit it out. I was able to eat but my stomach had shrunk so much that I could only eat small amounts. I was aware of two things, one, I couldn't stand the smell of burning pot anymore and two, my tastes had changed so that I couldn't eat anything with a lot of sugar in it! This was amazing to me! I'm still in a little shock that I have accomplished what I wanted to do with hypnotherapy. It was 3 weeks yesterday that I haven't had any smoke and I can look at candy or anything with sugar in it and not want it! I did take my son to a birthday party yesterday and even though I didn't eat any cake I had some sweets and it took me forever to eat it! I feel I can now still feed my sweet tooth but not go overboard. I could even eliminate sugar out of my diet and I'd be OK with that. I noticed that the natural sugars(fruit, agave, honey and stevia)I can deal with. It's the processed sugar that I don't want anymore. And I was the one who always asked for the corner piece of cake because it had the most frosting! lol I can hear people now, "I can't believe she told us she smoked pot!" YEAH! I'm in Boulder! Ha Ha. Actually I know a quite few people who don't. I feel that if I can tell people what I've gone through, I can make it OK for other people to open up and share their stories. It helps us all. There's nothing wrong with smoking pot, just educate yourself first as to what it can do before you experiment blindly. I would say that about any drug. Heh, we all have our foibles, vices, problems etc. Why try to deny it? I had some great revelations while being "stoned" and solved some problems here and there. I just allowed it to control me instead of me being in control. And I just feel I don't need it anymore. I have other tools in my arsenal to help me with stress or problems or thinking outside my box.? So anyway, I feel I've come a long way from where I was when I first came to Boulder in '94. I embrace every experience because it brought me to where I am now. I love where I am in life. A note here. I did many "scripts" with Raven, my hypnotherapist. What she is studying has it's roots in Buddhism. She doesn't wave a watch in front of me and make me "fall asleep" and she hasn't ever made me cluck like a chicken, that I know of.  Seriously, I was always aware of what she was saying. What happened was that having trust in her, I allowed her into my subconscious to help me "re-program" myself to be the way I wanted to be. We did a stress script, a self esteem and success script and more recently a creativity script. Patience is needed as sometimes things have to "percolate" in the subconscious before change happens. My serious desire for change in myself led me to her. I don't think this would work for everyone but it will work for some. I can honestly say that the work I have done with Raven has put me on the fast track to becoming the person I want to be. Most of my negative thoughts have subsided so I'm very aware of them when I do have them. I am more at peace. I have virtually no stress and I have more love for myself and fellow man. I would encourage all who read this to be open to the myriad of pathways that are available to us for growth and change. You never know what might work for you!